Uniper has submitted a planning application for a carbon capture plant beside its proposed Killingholme Low Carbon Power project in North Lincolnshire, adding the capture system and carbon dioxide pipeline connection to a 550MW combined cycle gas turbine power station that already has development consent.
The application to North Lincolnshire Council covers a plant intended to capture at least 95% of the carbon dioxide produced during electricity generation. Captured CO2 would be compressed and transferred through a new spur pipeline into nearby transport and storage infrastructure before being sent to permanent offshore geological storage developed by third parties.
Uniper says the consented CCGT and the proposed carbon capture plant could both be delivered from 2030. Main construction of the power station is anticipated to begin in late 2027, while installation of the capture equipment remains dependent on separate planning and environmental approvals and on the external carbon transport and storage network being available.
The application moves the carbon capture element from project intent into a defined planning process. North Lincolnshire Council will carry out its statutory consultation under application PA/2026/807, following public consultation undertaken by Uniper at the end of 2025.
Killingholme sits within the Humber industrial region, where power generation, refining, ports and energy-intensive manufacturing create a concentrated market for shared decarbonisation infrastructure. Carbon capture projects clustered around the same pipeline and offshore storage network can avoid each emitter having to develop an independent transport route, but they also create dependencies between projects with different construction and commissioning schedules.
Neil Tomlinson, Uniper general project manager for Killingholme Low Carbon Power, said: “By combining reliable gas-fired generation with carbon capture technology, the project has the potential to help meet future energy needs while supporting the UK Government’s ambition for Great Britain to achieve a clean power system.”
The capture plant would sit downstream of the gas turbine’s generation process, treating flue gas before the carbon dioxide is compressed for transport. That adds substantial process equipment, utilities, controls and energy demand around the power station and changes the way the overall plant has to be operated.
A 95% capture target describes the intended emissions performance when the system is operating as designed, but actual project performance will also depend on availability. The CCGT, capture plant, compression equipment, pipeline and storage chain have to remain sufficiently aligned for captured carbon to move continuously from combustion to permanent storage.
That integration becomes more demanding if the power station operates flexibly. Gas-fired generation is expected to provide dispatchable capacity as the proportion of wind and solar on the system rises, which can mean changes in output rather than steady baseload operation. Capture equipment must be able to respond to those operating conditions without excessive efficiency losses, slow recovery or unstable solvent and process performance.
The project therefore combines two industrial roles that can pull in different directions. The CCGT is intended to supply flexible generation when the electricity system needs it, while carbon capture works most efficiently when major process equipment can remain inside stable operating envelopes. Detailed control strategy and plant design will determine how successfully those requirements are reconciled.
Uniper’s Killingholme site already forms part of a wider energy infrastructure cluster and is being developed as an Energy Transformation Hub. The company is pursuing other lower-carbon projects in the UK, including hydrogen, renewables and carbon capture, while continuing to operate conventional generation and gas assets.
The location provides access to existing power and industrial infrastructure, but the carbon storage route lies outside Uniper’s direct control. Third-party pipeline and offshore storage projects have to reach the required readiness before the capture plant can operate as intended. Any delay downstream could leave generation capacity available while limiting the emissions performance on which the low-carbon proposition depends.
Construction sequencing will have to account for that uncertainty. Uniper can progress the consented power station and the planning process for capture in parallel, but equipment procurement, tie-ins and commissioning will eventually need a firm view of the carbon network’s delivery date. The spur pipeline included in the current application defines the local interface even though the wider system is still being delivered separately.
The development also illustrates how carbon capture power is moving from concept studies towards conventional project engineering. Planning boundaries, pipelines, plant layouts and operating dependencies now sit alongside policy questions over the role of gas in a lower-carbon electricity system.
North Lincolnshire Council’s consideration of the application is the next formal step. If consents, construction and the regional transport-and-storage network remain aligned, Killingholme could enter the next decade with a new dispatchable power station and capture plant commissioned as a single operating system rather than carbon capture being added years after generation begins.
